New York City restaurateur Keith McNally has claimed that singer Patti Smith was “incredibly rude” to his waitstaff.
McNally owns a number of famous food spots in the city, including Balthazar, Pastis, and Minetta Tavern. He also made headlines in 2022 when he briefly banned James Corden from Balthazar after the actor was allegedly “abusive” to the restaurant’s staff.
In an excerpt of his forthcoming memoir, I Regret Almost Everything: A Memoir, shared with New York Magazine’s Grub Street, McNally remembers working at the One Fifth restaurant in the Seventies. As the restaurant’s at the time, he often saw Smith and her then-boyfriend, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Mapplethorpe’s ex, the late Sam Wagstaff, dining at the iconic spot.
According to McNally, the then-famous couple were not the easiest customers. He made multiple claims about the “Gloria” singer’s unkind behaviour at the restaurant.
“Smith and Mapplethorpe could be very difficult to wait on,” the restaurant owner writes in the memoir. “Smith, unfortunately, was incredibly rude to the servers. It’s impossible for me to listen to a Patti Smith song today without remembering her reducing a waitress to tears because she forgot to put bread on the table.”
McNally notes that Mapplethorpe, meanwhile, “never tried to belittle” his waitstaff.
The Independent has contacted Smith’s assistant for comment.
On March 30, McNally also shared an Instagram post about his experience with Smith at One Fifth. In the caption, he reiterated his claims that Smith was “unbelievably rude to servers” and that the staff dreaded her visits.
“I spent four years at One Fifth and Smith was – by a country mile – the customer least liked by the servers. In fact, there was always a squabble whenever she’d arrive because none of the staff wanted to wait on her. She was the James Cordon of her day,” he wrote.
He went on to praise Wagstaff, saying that there are “only three people” he wished he’d gotten to know better, and “Sam Wagstaff is one of them.”
Back in October 2022, McNally branded former Late Late Show host James Corden a “tiny cretin of a man” and banned him from Balthazar over his alleged treatment of the staff. He called Corden “the most abusive customer to my Balthazar servers since the restaurant opened 25 years ago” and said, in true restaurant lingo, that he “86’d” Corden.
McNally went on to describe “two examples of the funny man’s treatment of my staff,” including an instance where Corden was allegedly “extremely nasty” and “yelled like crazy” at staff.
The Gavin & Stacey actor later admitted that he made “a rude, rude comment” to a restaurant worker and said “it was never my intention” to upset the staff at Balthazar.
McNally rescinded the ban shortly after and claimed that Corden had “apologized profusely.”
“But anyone magnanimous enough to apologise to a deadbeat layabout like me (and my staff) doesn’t deserve to be banned from anywhere. Especially Balthazar,” he wrote in an Instagram post at the time. “All is forgiven.”
I Regret Almost Everything: A Memoir is published by Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC, on May 6.